Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem Page 7

  “Damn, sweetheart. I’d take that over key lime pie any day.”

  Thigpen looks in the mirror and sees a disaster. He slams on the water full blast and slashes his face, combs his wet fingers through his disheveled hair.

  A waitress sticks her head in the door and raises her eyebrows.

  “What’s goin’ on in here?”

  “We were just leaving,” Thigpen says.

  At the cash register, he uses a credit card. Dandelion is already outside, retrieving her Audi. She checks the odometer, giving the attendant a look that could kill.

  Hot damn! Thigpen thinks, as he saunters through the door and down the steps, hefting up the waist of his khakis and tightening the belt. Nobody’s ever going to believe this.

  As Thigpen tumbles into the passenger seat, Dandelion lays rubber. The valet attendant dives out of harms way. Gravel flies.

  “WEE-HAH!” Thigpen yells, as they speed down Greenville.

  “Let’s get some drinks,” Dandelion says.

  “Whatever.” Thigpen is ebullient.

  Next thing, they’re in this dark trendy bar called Black Velvet. At 3:30 in the afternoon it’s deserted. The bartender appears stoned out of his gourd. Alt-rock cavorts from ceiling speakers.

  Dandelion orders sippin tequila con rocas. For both of them.

  “You a hunter, Earl? You know, camouflage duds, pump-action shotgun, the works?”

  “We get some fine migratory birds down in Biloxi.”

  “I knew it. The moment I saw you, I said to myself: That S.O.B. gets his rocks off blasting away at poor defenseless creatures.”

  “That’s one way of lookin’ at it.”

  “You bet. But it’s a different story over in I-raq. Over there it’s man against man. Kill or be killed.”

  Thigpen takes another sip of tequila. Where is she going with this? he asks himself. And who cares…? Maybe I should get us a motel room.

  “You ever killed anyone?” He waits for her to say “Earl.” But she doesn’t. She just looks at him with eyes like a surgeon’s hands. Or a pair of stainless steel meat cutters in the Tom Thumb deli department.

  Slice and dice. Thigpen knows he’s in over his head.

  But he can’t help himself. By the third round, Dandelion’s reliving Black Hawk Down frame by frame.

  “Let’s go back to the car,” she says.

  The light is beginning to attenuate with the westward decline of the sun. They walk in the deep shadows of a line of live oaks, next to an el cheapo Mexican restaurant. Neon lights come on in the windows. Tacos. Enchiladas. Ptomaine poisoning.

  The Audi’s parked on a side street.

  When they get to it, she opens the trunk. Lying there on an old gray Army blanket in the dim trunk-light is an AK-47, clip in.

  Wow, Thigpen thinks. But he doesn’t say anything.

  “Just point and shoot. Like a video camera.”

  “Tell me again…”

  “My parents are dead. My brother’s trying to kill me. Because I got everything.”

  “You mean the dried-up oil wells.”

  “They aren’t dried-up. I lied about that.”

  “And your brother wants them.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you want me to shoot your brother.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you do it yourself?”

  “I’ll show you why.” She steps close and runs her hand up his fly. Fiddles with the top button. Thigpen closes his eyes.

  The next moment, the hard point of her index finger taps his chest. His eyes fly open.

  “Listen up, Earl. It’s simple as pie. I drive by the café where Tim has a drink every evening at an outside table. You’re in the passenger seat with the assault rifle. When I slow down, you blast him. Then we’re outa there before anyone realizes what’s happened.”

  “There’s got to be another way. Maybe you should see a lawyer.”

  Her mouth closes over his, her tongue exploring the contours of his teeth. Her hand plays havoc with his genitalia. “Pretty please,” she whispers.

  When he opens his eyes this time, she’s lighting a J.

  “This’ll chill you out,” she says. She takes a deep drought and passes it.

  Then they’re back in the car with the AK-47 in Thigpin’s lap, driving down the now dark side street.

  Out of nowhere, headlights flash on bright. A car swerves in front of them blocking the street. The Audi’s breaks squeal. A full-size pick-up zooms in behind, locking them in.

  Bandidos, thinks Thigpen, as he slams into the padded dash. Luckily, the airbags don’t deploy. Thigpen scrambles out of the car, only to be knocked to the ground by a knee to his stomach. He spews.

  Dandelion screams bloody murder until someone slaps a piece of duct-tape across her mouth. Someone else punches her in the face and she slumps unconscious.

  When Thigpen stops retching, the AK-47 comes into view, lying on the ground, a boot resting on top of it. Thigpen looks upward. In the light of a conveniently placed streetlight, the boot’s owner is a young man whose features are almost identical to Dandelion’s. Her brother, Tim.

  “She’s loony as a crack whore,” Tim says. “Two days ago she escaped from the hospital in Amarillo where she stays out of trouble. Beat a lawyer unconscious with a crowbar, stole his Audi and drove to Dallas this morning.”

  Suddenly, Tim’s booted foot flares out, catching Thigpen in the ribs. He groans and scrunches into a ball.

  “You should be more careful about who you fuck with.”

  That’s the last of Dandelion.

  When he’s sure all the vehicles are gone, including the Audi, Thigpen opens his eyes. Shit, he thinks. I could be dead.

  He struggles to his feet. Nothing seems to be broken. He’s still got his wallet.

  Metal glints from the dark pavement, catching his eye. It’s the crazy bitch’s gold Zippo. He reaches down and pries it from the soft blacktop.

  Its mirror surface is scratched and abraded. But in the glow of the streetlight, Thigpen can still make out on the Zippo’s face the delicate etching of a dandelion in seed, its winged offspring breaking free into the breeze.

  Slipping the lighter into the front pocket of his khakis, he starts walking back toward Greenville Avenue.

  Maracaibo

  “I’ll have a salad,” Yvette says.

  “Have something substantial,” Bill urges. “Who knows when we’ll have a chance to eat again.”

  She considers the ceiling with a cross-eyed gaze.

  “No, really,” she says. “Just a salad.”

  The waiter pretends to write this down, though Bill knows he’s completely illiterate. Can’t even sign his name. Just an awkward X. You can tell by the way he holds the pen. Upside down.

  Bill glances up at the waiter, then back at the menu.

  The waiter waits, nodding his chin to some inaudible tune playing in his head. Something catchy, a fragment lodged in his brain from last week’s carnaval. Women dancing bare-breasted on elaborate floats. Black men in gold lamé suits, top hats and canes strutting back and forth down Carabobo Street.

  Patiently, the waiter waits for Bill to order. Pen poised upside down over his order pad. Each ticket in three parts, separated by sheets of carbon paper. Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, Bill thinks.

  Bill is torn between the BLT and the carne asada with beans and rice and fried plantains. Finally he chooses the latter.

  “Sorry,” the waiter says. “Kitchen’s out of plantains.”

  “How the fuck can that be?” Bill asks. “It’s the national food.”

  Bill reaches for his water glass, which is beaded with nodules of precipitation. But his perspective is off. A gnat fluttering in the corner of his eye perhaps. Or the shitty lighting.

  His fingers brush the side of the glass. It tilts. Falls. Spewing a swath of wetness across the tablecloth and into Yvette’s lap. She screams and jumps from her seat. The waiter fumbles for his towel.

&
nbsp; Bill puts his hands under the edge of the table and heaves upward. It goes over like a monstrous wave breaking on a placid shore. China, glassware, forks, knives, butter plate, breadbasket, floral centerpiece, the works, fly hither and yon.

  In the aftermath of the explosion, a cacophony of voices rises like a mushroom cloud. Everyone in the room is talking at once about Bill’s freak-out.

  Throwing his napkin aside in disgust, Bill strides out of the dining room, leaving Yvette to make amends. Salaaming her apologies like some Arab princess who’s parked her camel in a handicapped zone.

  The lobby is deserted except for an old man nodding off in a tufted leather armchair. His skeletal hand holds a finely polished blackthorn cane. Bill slips the cane from the geezer’s grip without incident. The old fart never even stirs. Bill hefts the dense hardwood shillelagh. A perfect affectation for the evening’s frivolities, he thinks. He tucks it under his arm and continues his rapid pace to the heavy bronze and glass front doors.

  Outside, the night is thick with fumes from the offshore oil derricks, rising like cruciforms above Lake Maracaibo’s turgid waves.

  Bill eases a 1,000-Bolivar note into the cupped hand of the parking valet. The attendant, encapsulated in an extra-tight pseudo-toreador outfit, weaves adroitly between two newly arriving autos to retrieve Bill’s midnight-blue Lamborghini from its premier parking spot under the porte cochere. When he fires up the engine, it squeals like a stuck pig. Then settles into a deep and abiding rumble.

  The valet holds open the driver’s door, and Bill slips into the molded leather seat like a prick into a well-lubricated condom. The blackthorn cane goes behind the seats. Bill’s almost feminine hand moves the stick shift in and out of gear with coordinated plunges and releases of the hair-trigger clutch.

  His other hand clicks open a gold cigarette case previously ensconced in the side pocket of his Versace tux and retrieves an oval-shaped cigarette. The attendant scoops forward like an obsequious crab, holding a disposable lighter in his gigolo’s fingers. The flame licks the tip of the cigarette. Bill draws deeply on the cancer stick, feeling the nicotine race through his blood with the speed of a greyhound after a fake rabbit.

  Through the thick glass sheets forming the façade of the hotel, a flurry of movement becomes apparent. As Bill concentrates his gaze, the scene becomes clear. Yvette is at the forefront running as best she can in four-inch spikes, her party dress hiked most of the way up her delightful thighs. Behind rages a frenzied mob of diners bent on mayhem.

  Bill revs the Lamborghini’s mighty engine. His eye catches that of the valet.

  “Get the passenger door,” he barks.

  As the attendant scurries into action, Yvette bursts through the glass and brass entry. At curbside she removes one stiletto-heeled pump and catapults it at the pursuing swarm. It soars like a ninja throwing star, catching the neck of the bare-shouldered blonde leading the pack. With a gurgling cry, the blonde stumbles, falls. The rabble roils over her like a berserk rugby scrum.

  Yvette bounds around the Lamborghini and sweeps into the passenger seat, tucking her sequined dress beneath her perfectly proportioned haunches. The valet slams the door. The dull thud of heavy metal resonates in the humid air.

  “Step on it, buster!” are Yvette’s pithy instructions.

  Bill obliges.

  The Lamborghini blasts into the night, but not before a thrown champagne glass shatters on the rear bumper like a tiny supernova.

  They cruise down the malecon fronting Lake Maracaibo where strolling lovers and trolling maricones rub shoulders in the rich purple light of early evening. Yvette tosses the other stiletto pump out the window; then squints into the vanity mirror, adjusting her makeup.

  “You’re such a fuck up,” she says.

  Bill’s fingers tighten on the oak and leather steering wheel. A stand-in for Yvette’s neck?

  “The waiter was an idiot,” he snaps.

  “That’s why you went nuts-oid! Because the waiter was an impoverished, illiterate dirtbag from Barrio 24 de Julio.”

  “And everyone was whispering about us.”

  “They were probably remarking on my serendipitous jugs.”

  There is no debate on that point.

  Yvette turns on the radio and cruises the channels until she finds a tune that makes her hot between the legs. She cranks up the volume and begins to shimmy like the exotic dancer she once was.

  “I want to dance ’til dawn,” she says. “Then die.”

  Bill considers Yvette with a jaundiced eye. Is she suicidal again or just playing out some fantasy pilfered from an old David Lynch movie. But her lascivious Lambada moves are addictive. He begins to gyrate, his arms waving in the air.

  “Yeah, baby!” he shouts.

  The Lamborghini drifts into the on-coming lane. Scream of brakes. Blare of horn. Head-on collision avoided by a cunt hair.

  Bill’s forehead beads with oil and body waste, his intestines do a triple backflip followed by a grand jeté. His heart goes on vacation. I’m too young to die, he thinks, unaware that the fates have already taken his number. It’s just a matter of time and place.

  In the heat of near collision and almost death, Yvette pisses her panties. Except she’s not wearing any. She scrambles in her purse for a wad of Kleenex. The scent of warm pee wafts on the night air.

  “Don’t ruin the leather seat!” Bill screams, scrambling for a cigarette.

  Across town a car bomb explodes outside the U.S. embassy, killing two Marines and maiming a half dozen more.

  The night is still young, though for Lake Maracaibo, rift with petrochemical pollutants and an exploding duckweed infestation, it may be later than you think.

  Yvette and Bill believe they will live forever. Who can argue with that?

  Yvette: “I’m hungry.”

  Bill: “I told you to order something more substantial than a salad.”

  “What are you talking about? We didn’t even get started on our water glasses before you pulled that little table trick.”

  Bill grins sheepishly and pulls up at a taco stand. A stunning Latina woman in roller skates sails over to take their order. Her name is Leona.

  “You’ve got great legs,” says Bill.

  Suspicion darkens her brow. Is this some kind of pickup line?

  “Don’t mind him,” Yvette interjects. “He’s legs crazy. But strictly a one-girl man.”

  “You hope,” says Bill.

  “You going to order something? Or just talk your heads off all night?”

  “Talk’s cheap,” Bill says.

  “So’s the food,” says Leona.

  “Give me three tacos de puerco adobado.” Bill says. “And a Polar negra.”

  “I’ll just have a salad,” says Yvette. “With the dressing on the side.”

  “You’re starting with the salad thing again?” Bill grumbles.

  “A girl’s got to look out for her girlish figure.”

  “Jesus.” Leona skates blithely away, the taut muscles of her calves and thighs rippling like the lash of a whip.

  Bill watches her leggy departure, fascinated by the enigma of desire. An almond-sized knot of longing lodges in the back of his throat. He coughs discretely into the back of his hand.

  Antoine’s Pool & Billiards resides in a historic building that has seen better days. The brick exterior is covered with layers of intricate graffiti drawn by unknown Picassos of the barrio. A tin-roofed portico held up by Victorian cast-iron columns throws deep shadows on the interior through wide-open French doors. Inside, each pool table, like separate solar systems, has its own light source.

  Bill and Yvette are playing modified eight ball. Bill is losing. And drinking steadily of the rum anejo. He smokes a Davidoff panatela. A ball teeters on the edge, but doesn’t fall into the pocket.

  “You’ve had piss-poor luck tonight,” Yvette says. “Three ball in the corner pocket.” She sights along her cue. Her hand draws back.

  “At least I didn’t lose my s
hoes,” Bill says as he walks behind her, nudging her elbow.

  Yvette is barefoot, the soles of her feet already as black as heavy crude. She shakes her ass at him. Then sinks the three ball.

  “One more, baby, and you’re history.”

  Bill motions for a fresh drink.

  “You keep drinking like that, you ain’t never going to get it up later.”

  “Piss off.”

  Using only the pressure of his hands, Bill snaps his cue in two; then walks over to the bar.

  “Give me some ceviche,” he tells the barman.

  A soccer game ebbs and flows across the TV screen on a shelf behind the bar. Venezuela versus Bolivia. The players, spread across a shamrock-green field, mimic billiard balls spinning and colliding on the green baize of the tables. Bolivia scores. Yvette sinks the eight ball.

  Bill is toast.

  Tonight Yvette is getting under Bill’s skin. So what else is new? While Bill sips his fresh drink, she scoots to the ladies room.

  Tonight’s the night, she thinks, as she squats over the smelly hole in the floor. If everything goes according to Bill’s plan, we’ll be on a flight to Mexico City in the morning. No more of Hugo Chavez’s looney tunes. No more death squads. Left or right.

  Back in the bar Bill keeps fiddling with his cell phone, checking the time. Pablo is late. Where the fuck is he? The bartender, Fidel, is asleep on his feet. Business is slow, dead even.

  At last a familiar figure appears in the doorway, longish coal-black hair, white shirt, dark trousers. Pablo. But his mahogany complexion is bleached stark white, as if he’s fallen into a vat of lime. He stumbles. Keels over at Bill’s feet.

  A crimson amoeboid stain spreads across the back of Pablo’s white shirt, blood leaking from a mortal wound.

  Holy shit! thinks Bill.

  Fidel gapes over the bar.

  “What’s up with Pablo?” he asks.

  “What does it look like?” Bill demands. “He’s been stabbed or shot.”

  Fidel looks queasy, as if he might puke. He pours himself a brandy and shoots it back.

  Just then Yvette walks up.

  “What’s up with Pablo?” she asks.

  But Bill is already squatting down. He lifts Pablo under his arms, turning him partially over, resting his head on his knee. Blood dribbles between Pablo’s lips. His eyes are vague, as if some insect from outer space has burrowed inside his brain and taken control.